Children, Violence and Pigs

I read recently that, according to the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Family Physicians and American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, media violence affects children’s behaviour, attitudes and values.

Well, I guess it does. All these heavyweight associations for our well-being agree that our children are exposed to images of violence more than at any time in our history. Apparently it makes them desensitized… but desensitized to what?

I was involved in a project to bring urban children out to farms to learn about where food comes from. These were exactly the sort of desensitized kids everyone imagines: vacant-eyed teenage skells straight out of a Porcupine Tree video, permanently hooked into their iPhones, iPods and X-Boxes. My experience was that when you put one of these desensitized fourteen year olds in front of a pig - in all its aromatic, hairy, snorty, slobbery, muscley, random, inquisitive pigginess – you see just how sensitive they really are. Pretty damn sensitive in my experience.

So, media violence may well desensitize our children to media violence, but certainly not to real live farm animals in search of an apple.

But let’s assume for the sake of argument that media violence does “affect children’s behaviour, attitudes and values” in a way that is permanent and undesirable. What should we do? The answer that we should somehow ban these images or prevent children from being exposed to them seems obvious. But here’s my argument: children today are not over-stimulated and desensitized. Children today are not more sophisticated than in the past. Compared to previous generations, children today - and I’m talking about western-urban children - live a thin, beige, flavourless existence where most of what they experience is vicarious and pre-packaged by media companies, global restaurant chains, and indoor leisure facilities. Their experience of the world outside their homes begins with the ballroom at Ikea and ends with the bus shelter opposite McDonalds. Their desensitization is not due to over-stimulation but to the terminal blandness of their immediate environment.

Children live an imprisoned life because of the fears their parents acquire from sensationalist media reportage. Perhaps desensitization to media violence is some sort of reaction to their parent’s fear. Perhaps it’s a preparation for going out into the world that they believe is just like the one the media report.

Creating communities and environments where children are free to roam outdoors, to experience things for themselves, to fall out of trees, to ride bikes, make mud pies, encounter strangers (shock!) and be home for dinner is the best antidote to media images of violence. And, because these images occur through television and the internet, if kids are outdoors finding out what the world is really like, they aren’t indoors watching them.